"I don't want to hurry any one," remarked our host, shaking the ashes
out of a well-blackened meerschaum, "but we have a long day before us
to-morrow, and if any one wants any sleep this is the time to take
it."
No response from any one of the half-dozen men lounging in the snug
armchairs of that most perfectly appointed smoking-room.
"I don't mind," said Sir Alan. "Two or three hours in bed are enough
for me at any time. Please pass the spirit case, Jones. I wonder
you're not sleepy, Tom Everton. You used always to be in bed by eleven
when you had an early morning in prospect, but I suppose matrimony has
cured you of that along with other failings."
"Tom says he isn't going," some one remarked.
"Not going! Pooh, nonsense! I thought he'd made up his mind to bring
down a hart royal, at least, or leave his bones on Balmaquidder
Brae."
Mr. Everton looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"I--I should like to try of all things," he stammered, "but--well--I
won't--at least I think--I--I shan't go with you to-morrow--that is,
if Sir Alan will excuse me."
"Please yourself and you'll please me," replied the hospitable
baronet; "but if it isn't any secret I'd like to know what has made
you change your mind so suddenly."
"He promised Mrs. Everton he wouldn't go," broke in the previous
speaker. "She dreamed a dream, and, like Pharaoh's chief baker, she
thought there was something in it."
"Do be quiet, Jones," interrupted Everton, irritably. "My wife had a
rather odd dream last night, and she's a bit nervous, you know,
and--well, after all, it's not much to give up one day's
deer-stalking, if any one's going to make herself miserable over it."
We all knew each other pretty well, this little circle of guests
collected by Sir Alan to help him to shoot his Scotch mountain, and
very free and outspoken was the "chaff" that flew around poor Tom
Everton's devoted head. He bore it with great good-humor for some
time, till Jones made a rather uncalled-for remark involving questions
of free will and "petticoat government." Then Tom flared up.
"I don't stay at home because I'm afraid of anything, but simply
because I have promised. My wife dreamed that I went out with this
party, and it grew late without any of us coming back. Then she
thought she saw me lying face down in the Balmaquidder, and she seemed
to know I was dead. I don't remember the details, but I know she
worked herself up into a shocking nervous state about it till I
promised not to go. Of course it's all nonsense, I know that, but what
can I do?"
"Do as you promised!" It was Colonel Eyre's deep voice that uttered
the words, and we all glanced round at the speaker. He had remained
silent during the badinage occasioned by Everton's determination,
sitting with his tumbler of Scotch whiskey-and-water in front of him,
puffing away silently at the short brier-root, whose bowl scarcely
cleared the sweep of his heavy, grizzled mustache. He was holding the
pipe in his hand now, sitting erect and speaking with unmistakable
earnestness of manner. "Do as you promised, and don't be too sure it's
all nonsense, either. I have known cases in which men have lived to be
very thankful that they yielded to a presentiment."
"But this was a dream, colonel," broke in the irrepressible Jones.
"Dream be it, then! Stay at home, Everton. As you say, it's not much
to miss a day's shooting. And if you neglect this warning the chances
are you may never live to regret it." The speaker took a sip from the
tumbler in front of him, replaced his pipe between his lips, and
leaned back as if the subject were at an end.
But the colonel, an Indian officer of many years' service, was
popularly supposed to have led a life of adventure, and to have
figured in more than one story whose exciting incidents could well
bear repetition. As a rule, he was a taciturn man, and it was by no
means easy to "set him talking," as the story goes. The present seemed
an opportunity too good to be lost, and several voices demanded the
experience by whose authority he had spoken so decidedly.
"Well, yes," said Colonel Eyre slowly, "I have seen a presentiment
very remarkably fulfilled. I am not much of a hand at yarning, but, if
you wish, I have no objection to give you a leaf out of my own book,
if it's only that you may leave my friend Tom here in peace to follow
his own course, without badgering him about it. Yes, I mean you, Mr.
Jones," he went on, impaling that helpless youngster with a glance
that sent him nervously to the spirit case, while the rest of us
settled ourselves comfortably to listen, and Sir Alan, with a "Fire
ahead, colonel," drew his chair forward into a better position.
"It was a good while after the breaking of the monsoon in '68," began
the colonel, slowly; "the weather was cool and pleasant enough, so
that, on the face of it, it seemed no great hardship when I was
ordered to take a detachment down to Sumbalpar. I was stationed at
Raipur at the time, in the Orissa district, and word came of some
trouble with the Zemindars above Sumbalpar. The only thing that seemed
inconvenient was the suddenness of the order. It was just 'Fall in and
march out' without delay of an hour. I was a young married man in
those days, pretty much in the position of my friend Tom Everton, with
a wife of two years and a bit of a baby a few months old. It wasn't
pleasant to leave them behind me in a place like Raipur, and, of
course, it was out of the question to start them at an hour's notice.
I spoke to my bearer, Josein, one of the best native servants I ever
saw, and directed him to make arrangements for an early march on the
following morning. He was to see my family driven quietly over to
Sumbalpar in the tonga. They were to travel by easy stages under the
charge of a careful bilewallah. If there are any 'griffs' in this
company, I may explain for their benefit that a tonga is a kind of
bullock wagon, and a bilewallah is the driver of the same. Well, I had
just time for a few words of comfort and farewell--Tom will appreciate
all that--before I rode out of Raipur at the head of my column. We
camped that night in the jungle, after a march of about twenty miles,
and it was under canvas that I was visited with the dream or
presentiment, or whatever you choose to call it, that gives such point
as it may possess to this old-time yarn of mine."
The colonel paused to refill his glass, but every one's interest was
now awakened, and no one broke the momentary silence that ensued.
"It was pretty late before I fell asleep," resumed Colonel Eyre,
setting down his tumbler, "and it was still dark when I awoke, or
seemed to awake, with my wife's voice ringing in my ears--a shriek of
agony that made me start up from my pillow and listen breathlessly.
There was a lantern burning in my tent--I had left it so when I lay
down--and by the glimmer of light I saw a large, dark mass spread
itself between me and the canvas roof and gradually settle down on my
head. I did not know what it was--it was vague and formless in
outline--but I had a consciousness that it was something of a
dangerous nature--something that threatened my life--and I struggled
to throw myself to one side or the other. In vain. I could not move
hand or foot. I lay as if chained to the bed, and still the dark mass
descended, shutting out light and air and seeming to suffocate me."
"Nightmare!" remarked Sir Alan.
"Very possibly," returned the colonel. "Suddenly, just as I gave
myself up for lost, and sank back on the pillow exhausted, I heard my
wife's voice again, this time clear and articulate. 'Save yourself,
Gerald,' it cried. 'Make one more effort for my sake.' I glanced up at
the threatening outline, nerving myself for a final struggle. It was
no longer formless; its approach had ceased to be slow. Swift as the
swoop of a falcon it descended upon me--the immense body of a tiger on
the spring--its cruel jaws agape, its enormous paws with every claw
unsheathed, and its hot, fetid breath on my very brow!"
"A decidedly uncomfortable dream," observed Jones.
"Of course all this passed in one-tenth of the time I take to tell it.
I rolled out from under the hungry jaws, and just as I reached the
ground I heard the angry growl of the baffled monster, followed by a
shattering roar loud enough to waken the Seven Sleepers. As my senses
came back to me, I found myself lying half on the ground, half on my
low camp bed, my body bathed in perspiration, and trembling in every
limb. Just then my batman put his head inside the tent-flap and asked
me if I had heard the roar, adding that there was a tiger in the camp.
I pulled on my clothes, and I could hear the men walking about among
the tents, searching and whispering--but no trace of a tiger could we
discover."
"Then it was a real tiger?" inquired Tom.
"It would seem so, as the whole camp had heard the roar as well as
myself. However, it was almost morning by this time, and as every one
was afoot and moments were precious I gave orders to push on at once.
A hurried chota hazree was quickly prepared and despatched, and by the
time the sun rose we were fairly on our way, with a good prospect of
reaching Sumbalpar before nightfall. I couldn't shake off the
impression of the dream, however, try as I would. Besides, some
natives who had come in before we broke camp told us of a man-eater
which had been infesting the district. A tiger that has once tasted
human flesh, as you may have heard, is never content with beef or
venison afterwards, and they sometimes make themselves the terror of a
whole country-side before they are shot. What with the vague
misgivings suggested by my dream, and the tangible danger of the
man-eater, I found myself growing more and more uneasy with every mile
we marched. Finally, I determined to turn back and meet my wife. I was
well mounted, and I believed I could gallop to the rear, assure myself
that all was well with her, and pick up my command again before it
reached Sumbalpar. I left the detachment in charge of a sergeant--poor
old Busbee, he died of jungle fever that same year--and rode back as
fast as King Tom, a very speedy chestnut, could lay leg to ground. I
passed the spot where we had spent the night, and kept on several
miles beyond without seeing anything to cause uneasiness. My fears
were beginning to disperse, and common sense made itself heard. I
realized that I might find it very difficult to give a satisfactory
explanation of my absence if the men reached Sumbalpar without
me--they do not pay much attention to dreams at headquarters. This
view of the case became more impressive with each mile I rode, and I
determined that if the next turn in the path did not bring my family
into view, or show me some other good reason for pushing on, I would
turn back and rejoin my command. Thus resolved, I cantered forward,
swung round the tangled angle of brush that limited my view, and
saw----"
Here the colonel stopped for another sip of whiskey-and-water.
"What did you see?" cried Sir Alan. "Your wife?"
"Yes, sir, I saw her. She was sitting with the baby in her lap in the
tonga--pale--I have never seen such an expression of strained terror
on any human countenance. The bilewallah was in front, trying to keep
the bullocks, which seemed almost frantic with fear, to the path. I
knew the man well--one of the best hands with a team at the
station--but just then his face was so distorted with fright that I
hardly recognized him. You know that lilac-grayish tinge a native's
face gets when he is scared almost to death----"
"I know, I know," broke in Sir Alan. "But what was the matter--what
was frightening them? Could you see anything?"
"Indeed I could," replied the colonel. "Cause enough they had; not
five yards behind them trotted the largest tiger it has ever been my
fortune to see."
Various exclamations testified to the completeness of the surprise to
which Colonel Eyre had treated his audience.
"Was it a man-eater?" I asked.
"At first I supposed it was, but if it had been I never should have
seen them alive. After I shot the beast----"
"Oh, you did shoot him?"
"Don't ask me how! I am counted a fair shot--I was far better then;
but when I levelled my rifle at that brute's heart, when I realized
how much hung on the result--for if I had missed, or if I had merely
wounded him, he would have been in the tonga at a single spring, and
nothing under heaven itself could have saved those dearest to me from
a horrible death--when I realized all this, I don't know how I found
the nerve to pull the trigger. I suppose I knew it was the only
chance. My appearance had enraged the animal and he was just preparing
to spring. This I do know, and I'm not ashamed to own it: when I saw
that I had laid the tiger out with a single shot--a thing that doesn't
happen twice in a lifetime--I fell flat beside the tonga in the act of
helping my wife down; for the first and last time in my life I
fainted.
"Yes, it was a pretty hard trial on the nerves," resumed the
colonel, as our discussion of the situation sank into silence, "but
nothing to what my wife had gone through. That tiger had followed
them for more than four miles through the jungle. The bilewallah,
with rare presence of mind, had managed to keep the bullocks to their
steady jog-trot--any increase of pace or appearance of flight would
have provoked a spring. She, poor woman, had succeeded in hushing
her baby, for had the child cried, nothing is surer than that the
sound would have led to an attack. It must have been an awful four
miles for her. It was years before she recovered from the effect."
"And why did not the tiger attack them?" inquired Jones. "Does any one
know?"
"The animal was doubtless waiting to kill them till they got into the
vicinity of water," explained Colonel Eyre. "Tigers often do that with
cattle and other large quarry. There was water a mile or less further
on. I had noticed it myself in passing. If I had not come upon the
ground, another ten minutes would have sealed their fate."
"So it may fairly be said that your dream was the means of saving
their lives," observed Tom Everton, who, although the most silent, had
not been the least attentive of the listeners.
"I think we may fairly admit so much," replied Colonel Eyre. "If it
had not been for my dream, I do not think the report of the man-eater
would have brought me back. On the other hand, but for hearing about
the man-eater and actually being awakened by the roar of a tiger, I am
not sure that the dream would have had weight enough with me to induce
me to leave a detachment on the march--a serious thing, gentlemen, as
some of you who are soldiers know well enough."
"It's a very curious circumstance, certainly," observed Sir Alan; and
then there was a pause.
"But see here, colonel," Tom broke in again, "the dream, if a warning
at all, was a warning of danger to you, yourself, and though you
certainly heard Mrs. Eyre's voice calling to you, yet it was urging
you to save yourself, and not summoning you to her assistance."
"That is very true, and it puzzled me at the time. But, as I argued,
it is wonderful enough to get a warning of danger in the future at
all; you must not expect to have it spelled out to you in large print.
Now, as to this dream of Mrs. Everton's--it prefigures danger to you,
as I understand?"
"You must go to Mrs. Everton herself for the details. All that I
remember is that she saw me lying drowned in the Balmaquidder, and
read the vision as a warning that some accident would befall me if I
joined the shooting-party to-morrow. But, by the light of your
experience, it would seem the danger is to her, not to me."
"I'm not quite so sure of that," returned the colonel, thoughtfully.
"Well, I think there can be no question that your dream saved your
wife's life," observed Jones, upon whose scepticism the colonel's
narrative had made some impression.
"No question at all," rejoined that officer, rising, "and therefore,
young man, pay attention to dreams, whether they be your own or those
of your better half, which should be, _a fortiori_, better and more
reliable than your own. Good-night, gentlemen. It's past one o'clock,
and we have an early start before us."
In ten minutes more silence and darkness reigned in the smoking-room
of Balmaquidder Lodge.
Next morning the men of the party were up and stirring betimes. As I
left my bedroom, candle in hand, I heard voices proceeding from the
apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Everton. "Ah, ha," thought I,
"Tom's curtain lecture is not over yet." However, our friend's absence
was forgotten in the enjoyment of a substantial Highland breakfast,
and by the time the sun asserted his power against the mist we were
bravely breasting a steep mountain side, spurred on by the hope of a
good day's sport.
Only one incident occurred at our start. Sir Alan was setting his face
against a steep brae when he was stopped by the bare-legged gillie
who acted as our guide. "Dinna gae yon gait, Sir Alan. We must win
ower by the brig below."
"Can't we get across by the stepping-stones at the ford?" inquired our
host, impatiently. "The bridge is a mile of a round."
"I dinna ken that the stanes'll be ower muckle safe, Sir Alan, forbye
ye canna see them at a' wi' the white water swirling ower them, and
the pool maybe ten feet deep close in under them. We mought win ower
recht enoo, an' again we mought na--ye ken----"
"Yes, I ken," interrupted Sir Alan. "We'll go round by the bridge,
gentlemen. There's a flood in the river, it appears--a cheerful habit
the Balmaquidder has when you least want it or expect it."
By the bridge accordingly we went, and when I saw the brown water
whirling down in swift eddies I was thankful that we had not attempted
the stepping-stones.
It was evening, and fast growing dark, when we reached the glen on our
return, wet, tired, and hungry, but thoroughly satisfied with the
day's result. We were stepping out briskly, for we knew we were close
to home, when a big mountain hawk swooped right in front of us. Jones,
who had not drawn the cartridge from his rifle, let fly on the
instant, without remembering how small was his chance with a bullet at
quarry on the wing. We were amusing ourselves chaffing Jones as the
bird flew off untouched when Colonel Eyre, who was a few steps to the
rear, pulled up short and raised his hand to signal for silence.
We all heard it then--a shrill, lamentable voice ringing sharply from
the hillside; there was no mistaking the purport of that appeal, it
was a cry for help. But the mist was beginning to settle and the echo
baffled us. For a moment we looked blankly at each other and around,
not knowing whither to turn.
Again the cry, "Help, help, help!" with a note of agony in it that
stirred the blood like a trumpet. "God guide us--'tis at the foord
above you," cried the gillie, and, tired as we were, none of us were
far behind him when he reached the stepping-stones.
They were hidden by a mass of swirling, broken water, but just below
them lay the pool of which the guide had spoken--calm by comparison
with the ford, but agitated nevertheless with a swift current that
flashed between steep banks faced with granite; as ugly a place for an
accident as might be found in the whole length of the brawling
Balmaquidder.
And an accident had happened, plainly enough. On one of the granite
boulders knelt Mrs. Everton, leaning back with all her might against
the drag of a plaid, one end of which she held, while the other was
lost in the black shadows of the pool.
She heard our footsteps as we ran up, but did not turn her head.
"Help, help!" she cried again. "I can't hold on much longer, and
he--oh----"
She broke off with a sob, as strong hands relieved her of the
extemporized life-line, and Colonel Eyre, bending forward, peered down
into the obscurity of the pool. I was one of those who had grasped the
shore end of the plaid, and the strain told me that whoever was below
still maintained his grasp. "Can you hold on another moment?" asked
the colonel; then, without waiting for a reply, "Cling close for dear
life. Now, boys, gently does it. A steady, slow pull--no jerking;" and
in another moment the dripping, half-senseless form of Tom Everton was
drawn out on the bank, his drowning grip of the plaid still
unloosened, and laid beside the fainting form of his wife.
"It was this way," Tom explained some hours later, when we were all
assembled for our usual smoking-room symposium. "I dare say I was
pretty cross all day, thinking of the sport you fellows were having,
and all I was missing, and towards evening my wife suggested that we
should walk out and try to meet you. We kept along the river up to
the stepping-stones, but the crossing there looked so bad that my wife
would not hear of my attempting it. I did not think it so very
dangerous, but I dare say I'd have let her have her own way----"
"As you usually do," interjected Jones.
"----when all of a sudden I heard a shot close by on the other side.
Then I started over at once. I've been across the ford a dozen times,
but before I had taken three steps I found the stream was too strong
for me. I tried to turn back, but the current seemed to whirl me right
off my feet; I went sliding over the slippery stones, and in two
seconds I was soused well over my head into the pool below, and
spinning round like a troll in a brook. I tried to grasp hold of
something on the bank, but that was the only result"--showing his
lacerated hands--"and I think I must have been very close to kingdom
come, when something or another flapped in my face. I clutched it and
hung on like grim death; it was Jenny's plaid, which she had the
presence of mind to fling me and the pluck and strength to hold on to
till you came to help. God bless her, I say"--Tom's voice faltered a
little--"she's a wife to be proud of; and the next time she has a
dream and wants me to stay at home, she shan't have to ask me twice."
"Oh, by the by, the dream!" broke in Sir Alan. "Is this accident to
Tom to be regarded as the fulfilment of his wife's dream or not?"
"Mrs. Everton's dream was a warning," said the colonel. "I should say
that, having profited by the warning----"
"But stay," I argued, "did she profit by the warning? She persuaded
her husband to stay at home. Now, if he had gone with us he would have
crossed by the bridge and been as safe as any of us. The dream did not
save him. On the contrary, it very nearly drowned him."
"She acted for the best, and all's well that ends well," replied the
colonel. "Look at my dream, now. If I had not gone to my wife's help
and shot that tiger I should never have seen her again. No, no, as I
said before, you can't expect these warnings to be printed out in big
type. You must just take them as they come, and chance your reading
them aright."
"And come within an ace of drowning yourself, or some one else,"
interjected Jones.
"It only bears out the old saying that 'Dreams go by contraries,'" I
remarked. "Still, these are a very remarkable pair of coincidences."
"Here's my view," said Sir Alan. "Eat light suppers, go to bed
healthily tired, and you won't dream at all; or, if you must, forget
all about it as soon as possible. You can torture a warning out of
almost anything, and make yourself wretched trying to find out where
the hidden danger is, and very likely rush right into it, as Everton
did, trying to avoid it. Half the time dreams do go by contraries, and
it's dangerous meddling with what we don't understand."
And by the time the spirit case had completed its next round, we all
agreed with Sir Alan.